Overview of the Cursor Service

Developers building applications using OLE DB technologies can define new cursors or manipulate existing cursors with the Microsoft Cursor Service for OLE DB. This service can be used both on client-tier and on middle-tier applications, and in conjunction with other OLE DB data providers and service component providers.

The Cursor Service provides a client-tier and middle-tier cache for data sets (or cursors) and a service that implements smart synchronization functions. Using these services dramatically reduces network traffic while giving you full control over data synchronization. The Cursor Service can be installed on each tier of a multitier application, providing an effective solution for scalability. The OLE DB rowset becomes a convenient structured data buffer that can be marshaled by value between computers or processes. Changes to the rowset can be tracked and exposed when the rowset is returned to the server that created it. Sorting and filtering are also possible. The Cursor Service is an underlying technology that is hidden from the ADO user and accessible to the OLE DB developer through the IRowset interface.